"Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to
die." The preceding statement is likely to elicit one of two reactions
from listeners, either "Huh?" or "Ahhh, time to watch ‘The Princess
Bride’ again!"

If you are back with Reaction # 1, here’s the scoop – "The Princess
Bride" is a delightful, tongue-in-cheek 1987 filmic fairytale, based on
William Goldman’s even more wonderful 1973 novel. Framed by the device
of a grandfather (Peter Falk) reading his favorite book to his ailing
young grandson (Fred Savage), "The Princess Bride" is full of comic
derring-do and sly wordplay. In the mythical kingdom of Florin, true
lovers Westley (Cary Elwes) and Buttercup (Robin Wright) are first
separated by Westley’s poverty as he goes off to seek his fortune, and
then by the machinations of evil Prince Humperdinck (Chris Sarandon)
and his cruel henchman Count Rugen (Christopher Guest). Thrown into the
mix are a good-hearted giant (Andre the Giant) and the brilliant
swordsman Inigo Montoya (Mandy Patinkin), who’s spent 20 years seeking
his father’s murderer (see above).

"The Princess Bride" may have been a little too hip for the room at the
time of its release. However, it has developed a cult following in the
years since then – if you’ve heard people quoting the Montoya speech
when playfully but sincerely expressing determination, or anybody’s
seen you off with, "Have fun storming the castle!", this is the frame
of reference.

And a thoroughly grand frame it is, too. Although it is scrupulously
faithful to Goldman’s novel – Goldman adapted the screenplay himself
and, as both the commentaries and the making-of featurettes attest, he
was around for production as well – "Bride" also reflects the
sensibilities of director Rob Reiner, who had recently come off "This
Is Spinal Tap." It’s a stylistic marriage made in movie heaven. Reiner,
Goldman and a sublime cast manage to at once send up the swashbuckler
genre and bask in all its glories. There’s a swordfight between good
guys Westley and Inigo that is hilarious and thrilling; there are
grandiose battles of wits, endless tumbles down cliffs and a
fantastically mismatched wrestling match. It’s also funny to see the
very lordly English Elwes (whose accent tilts toward Americanization in
the retrospective featurette) adapting himself to the slight Yiddish
lilt in the dialogue: "This is true love, you think this happens every
day?"

Reiner gives the movie the look of a ‘30s Technicolor spectacular – a
lot of the soundstage shots do in fact look like exactly what they are,
but the artifice is part of the point. We are continually reminded that
this is a story being told, although the characters themselves never
break the fourth wall; they are unaware of any reality except their
own, and their screwy, peril-filled lives are urgent to them, just as
the members of Spinal Tap take their tour very seriously.

Guest is so silkily nasty as Rugen that the uninitiated may not
immediately recognize him as the same actor who plays Nigel Tufnel in
"Tap" – the man is nothing if not versatile. Everybody here is just as
completely on their game. Elwes does a world-class send-up of Errol
Flynn at his most dashing. Wright gets the closest thing "Princess
Bride" provides to a straight role, but she inhabits it with regal
conviction and the ability to deliver punchlines with as sober an
expression as the emotional declarations. Patinkin has a panache that
proves him to be totally in synch with the material – he’s perfect.

The featurettes with the DVD are enthusiastic – there are four
making-ofs if we count the footage shot and narrated by actor Elwes –
even if they contain overlapping information. There are also a couple
of nice bloopers and the editors had fun with the recently-shot,
retrospective featurette, which uses moments from the actual movie to
comment on production difficulties. It’s also pleasing to know that we
are seeing Elwes and Patinkin, as opposed to stunt doubles, squaring
off in all the shots where they’re actually fencing (albeit it’s
somebody else doing the flying leaps and back flips). The commentaries
by Reiner and author Goldman are likewise cheerful and informative,
although both men seem to get caught up in watching the movie from time
to time, as they occasionally lapse into silence.

All of this means that "The Princess Bride" DVD is well worth owning,
even though it is not the most technically stunning disc out there.
It’s not bad, by any means – the color reproduction, especially in the
daylight scenes, is beautiful, with Buttercup’s orange-red gown a great
focal point. (Funnily, the dress looks bright pink in the video
making-of supplements.) Much of the film looks a bit dark, but this is
faithful to the original, and if anyone doubts that the video folks
lavished time and care on making the DVD transfer look good, check out
the contrast of the film to that of the footage included in the
trailer, which is bright, glaring and looks like a TV broadcast.

The 5.1 soundtrack is one of those remixes that simply spreads around
sound from the mains into the rears. The closest the film comes to a
true surround effect is in Chapter 11, when fire erupts in a swamp with
nicely large, alarming booms. Otherwise, the track is pretty, with some
appealingly smooth music in Mark Knopfler’s score to complement the
various moods (although the lyrics added to the theme over the closing
credits will make few "Greatest Hits" lists). The center-channel
dialogue is reasonably clear, although it sometimes sinks slightly in
the mix.

"The Princess Bride" is a winner, a fractured fable that kids itself
from start to finish, yet somehow paradoxically has an integrity that
draws us into its cockeyed universe rather than reminding us that it’s
just a movie. In fact, it’s more than that – it’s a comedy/fantasy
genre touchstone.